Philip Burrows

Abstract:

We report the design, operation, and performance of a high-resolution, low-latency, bunch-by-bunch feedback system for nanobeam stabilization. The system employs novel, ultralow quality-factor cavity beam position monitors (BPMs), a two-stage analog signal down-mixing system, and a digital signal processing and feedback board incorporating a field-programmable gate array. The field-programmable gate array firmware allows for the real-time integration of up to fifteen samples of the BPM waveforms within a measured latency of 232 ns. We show that this real-time sample integration improves significantly the beam position resolution and, consequently, the feedback performance. The best demonstrated real-time beam position resolution was 19 nm, which, as far as we are aware, is the best real-time resolution achieved in any operating BPM system. The feedback was operated in two complementary modes to stabilize the vertical position of the ultrasmall beam produced at the focal point of the ATF2 beamline at KEK. In single-BPM feedback mode, beam stabilization to 50±5 nm was demonstrated. In two-BPM feedback mode, beam stabilization to 41±4 nm was achieved.

Abstract:

A high-precision intra-bunch-train beam orbit feedback correction system has been developed and tested in the ATF2 beamline of the Accelerator Test Facility at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Japan. The system uses the vertical position of the bunch measured at two beam position monitors (BPMs) to calculate a pair of kicks which are applied to the next bunch using two upstream kickers, thereby correcting both the vertical position and trajectory angle. Using trains of two electron bunches separated in time by 187.6 ns, the system was optimised so as to stabilize the beam offset at the feedback BPMs to better than 350 nm, yielding a local trajectory angle correction to within 250 nrad. The quality of the correction was verified using three downstream witness BPMs and the results were found to be in agreement with the predictions of a linear lattice model used to propagate the beam trajectory from the feedback region. This same model predicts a corrected beam jitter of c. 1 nm at the focal point of the accelerator. Measurements with a beam size monitor at this location demonstrate that reducing the trajectory jitter of the beam by a factor of 4 also reduces the increase in the measured beam size as a function of beam charge by a factor of c. 1.6.

Abstract:

A precise characterization of the incoming proton bunch parameters is required to accurately simulate the self-modulation process in the Advanced Wakefield Experiment (AWAKE). This paper presents an analysis of the parameters of the incoming proton bunches used in the later stages of the AWAKE Run 1 data-taking period. The transverse structure of the bunch is observed at multiple positions along the beamline using scintillating or optical transition radiation screens. The parameters of a model that describes the bunch transverse dimensions and divergence are fitted to represent the observed data using Bayesian inference. The analysis is tested on simulated data and then applied to the experimental data.